Did the PC Engine die at the right time?

[_Paul]

I was thinking about this while driving home. Do you think the PC Engine died just at the right time?

Looking at the direction the software was heading, I am sort of happy that it didn't go on for much longer. With the growing trends, what would we have seen? A multitude of one-on-one fighting games (that never really interested me), lots more Japanese dating sims... One thing that I dislike in 2D games around that time is the growing use of pre-rendered 3D graphics - taking a look at Sapphire, it shows this trend, with lots of fake polygon sprites and 'effects' such as morphing. To me, they show the start of the decline of well crafted hand-drawn graphics, and I would imagine that more and more PC Engine games would have followed suit. Any thoughts?

[NecroPhile]

If the last few titles released ('96 vintage) are any indication of the type of game that would've been put out had they held on a few more years, then I say they quit too soon.  The SF2 band wagon jumping had mostly run its course by then and there's no wish-it-were 3D crap in Madou Monogatari, Puyo Puyo 2, Bazaaru de Gozaaru, Steam Heart's (3D nipples?), or Go! Go! Birdie Chance.

[exodus]

It did die at the right time. Necromancer, you'd be right if the 32 bit systems hadn't come along, but they did. Nobody third parties were going to support the PCE any longer, they were going to go where the money was, so about all they'd do would be mediocre back-ports or dating sims. It would've ended with much more of a fizzle if they'd kept going, like the PS2 library of today.

[nectarsis]

It did die at the right time. Necromancer, you'd be right if the 32 bit systems hadn't come along, but they did. Nobody third parties were going to support the PCE any longer, they were going to go where the money was, so about all they'd do would be mediocre back-ports or dating sims. It would've ended with much more of a fizzle if they'd kept going, like the PS2 library of today.

PS2..fizzle..the system that was still going fairly strong close to 3 years AFTER it's successor came out (and still has a few games coming out even now)?

The PCE was def dying support wise.  Considering how long support lasted, and what was done on very aged hardware it was still impressive.  Especially considering it wasn't a "huge hit" in the US/Europe sales wise the library as a whole (both TG & PCE) is still rather impressive in amount of games, and variety.

[shubibiman]

I would have liked to see Super Street Fighter 2 or Donpachi adaptations on the arcade card. It would have been far from the original games but still, I think they could have made great conversions.

[awack]

I would have liked to have seen stronger support into 1996, the PCE had some really good RPGs released in 95 (Xanadu II, Anearth fantasy stories) i can imagine Xanadu III, anearth fantasy stories 2 or Ys V, for the Arcade card.

[NecroPhile]

It did die at the right time. Necromancer, you'd be right if the 32 bit systems hadn't come along, but they did. Nobody third parties were going to support the PCE any longer, they were going to go where the money was, so about all they'd do would be mediocre back-ports or dating sims.

I'd buy your argument, if it weren't for the Super Famicom's seemingly contradictory library.  1995 was arguably the last year of real support for the PCE, as only 11 titles were released after that year (1.5% of its library); the SF saw 245* games released in that same time period (14.6% of its library).  The SF admittedly had a much larger library (more than double) and greater third party support, but given such a startlingly vast disparity, coupled with the fact that many of the latter SF titles were fantastically original and among the best of its library, it's impossible to believe that few cared about the 16-bitters after '95.

* - The list I used included Satellaview titles, and undoubtedly a fair number of these 245 titles were Satellaview titles.  It's still support, I suppose, but hardly the same as a bona fide release.

[Vecanti]

Part of my thinks it did.  In the US it just seemed to never really make it.  But if it had tried to keep going well into and after the PS1/PS2 (2000) era I think it would have lost some of the respect it had.   PS1, though I never owned one, was really a technological leap.

On the other hand, looking at games from 87-91 and then looking at things like Xanadu, Saphire, etc it's almost unbelievable that it's the same hardware.  The programmers worked some real magic.  It would have been awesome to see them keep going.  I think there are some titles that reach the early PS1 level of games as far as 2D is concerned.

Of course I would have loved to see the PC Engine line continue with updated hardware. Even if the hardware was different there were so many talented PC Engine programmers that had a unique style.  I think most of that was lost though to 3D so maybe even a 3D hardware PC Engine wouldn't have been the same.


What ever happened to all the developer systems that must have been used to make all the PC Engine games?

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah...kind of. There are so many of those shitty dating games, digital comics, and other non-games from the end of the PCE's life that part of me feels glad that it didn't keep going like that. On the other hand those games are really just evidence of what was left after real interest in the system moved on and it became way too otaku-ized.

There were a few trends in mid to late PCE life that I really wish would have continued for a little while longer. I wish more stuff like Kaze Kiri and Sapphire were made instead of Graduation II. Also, Bandai made the first decent Dragon Ball Z game on PC Engine, and it makes me wonder what more that team could have done with the PCE. I also would have liked to see some real Arcade Card support. Its so frustrating how underused the AC is. I also wish that Aim for the Top! 3 and Silent Mobius actually got finished...although that's just me being selfish since really thats more of the otaku crap.

So basically I wish it would have stayed healthier for longer, but died at the same time...sorta. I agree that it would have just been painful to see the PCE overrun with pre-rendered sprites.

[TurboXray]

I think its time of death was fine, just not the *way* it died (see below). I can't really see it going on much further into '97/98. I'm sure the licensing fee *was* cheap near the end, and that 3rd party companies *still* could have carried on with it as niche platform. But it just didn't really happen like that. Did NEC pull the plug on licenses altogether stopping this from happening? 1999 release of DotB was surprising though. Not sure what they were thinking.

  What bothered me the most, is that it took quite some time for developers to put in some *real* production values into games (CD games that is). It seems to me that the system was living off the charm of the 8bit era transition - basic playing/looking games... but still fun. They were kind of late to change with the times. It seem like in 1992 with the release of the Duo, SCD, and GOT things were finally changing, and in 1993 with some other titles holding promise - that the system was finally gonna get some higher end production titles by 3rd party companies. But that really wasn't the case. Companies (mostly 3D party) were still putting out minimal effort in animation/graphics/layout in general. As if there wasn't really a drive to compete on the platform, to raise the bar so to speak. Not that many of the games were bad mind you, they just weren't top tier or close to it - nicely polished like on the competitive systems. I mean, knowing what the PCE was capable of from early on. Kinda begs the question of what was going on. At least to me. There's no FF4 or FF6 on the PCE CD at the time or *platformers* that were up to snuff. You don't need scaling/rotation/transparency or even massive parallax to make some really great games or platformers. There's no excuse for that. Or ChronoTrigger or Super Mario RPG, DKC (even if I don't care for the game) etc of the later/last generation of games. Where was a badass Super PC-Genjin RPG for SCD? Some games came close (in one or two genres and that was near the end), but most didn't even come close to that level of production value IMO. And this, coming from a CD gaming machine - not some cart restricted system.

 The SCD upgrade and the Duo was supposed to be thee next stage of the system software development. The next level. Time to get serious. To bring it to the next level with the other systems. To be on par in *all* genres (IMO). But it ended up being a mix bag. ACD appeared to be the fix for this. Finally - now we are getting somewhere, but it ended up just being a teaser. The ACD bi-compatible games barely take any noticeable advantage of the card. Some reduced load times? Big deal. Where was the additional animation, samples, unique tiles/upgraded graphics for these bi-compatible games? No where. The ACD only games? Aside from strider, which really isn't an ACD game at all but an old SCD project brought back from the dead to be released on the ACD to remove load times, all the other ACD only games didn't disappoint from what I've played. The NeoGeo ports are fantastic. Sapphire was great, though I'm not a fan of *all* the graphic styles of the game, the game itself is of high production value. From the high frame rate animation (morphing/bosses/scaling/polygon motion/etc) to the action on screen, stage layout, FX, detail, etc. And 2 player co-op mode. (Sadly, the weapon SFX suck) With enough memory restriction/limitations removed and companies putting in great effort.

 But then... some of those last *great* gems that came out in '95/96 (even earlier in late 94) *didn't* even bother to take advantage of the Arcade Card. That's the true shame of the end of the PCE's life. Not that it had so few titles near the end, but that ACD was just kinda forgotten. The ACD died before the PCE died. The ACD dream was dead. Dead before it was realized. And as consolation we were given a few parting gifts and gems (and mostly non ACD) as the PCE itself, without the might of the ACD to make it *really* shine, rapidly faded away in the background.. and then into nothingness.

[Tatsujin]

PCE WILL NEVER DIE!! but only for those who know.

[SignOfZeta]

To understand why the PCE doesn't have an FF-grade RPG...its all numbers, I'd imagine.

If you look at the size of staff and the development time of a game like Chrono Trigger...its just HUGE. Of course its nothing compared to todays games (Gran Turismo 5 for PS3, 5 years in the making, $60,000,000 in dev costs, and delayed AGAIN) but the market in general was smaller back then. A SFC RPG from square would sell 2-10 times as many units and cost a lot more (12,800 yen or so versus the usual 7,800 yen for PCE games). This results in small dev teams. Really small dev teams. As in, you call the support number and the head programmer answers the phone to help you get unstuck...that kind of small.

Then take into account the increased time and money that go into the audio portion of things, and the need to hire an outside contractor for character designs on even the most mundane of genres (racing, gambling) and you pretty much have the PC Engine economy right there.

The games that best compare to high end RPGs from Square, Enix, etc are the Cosmic Fantasy series and the games from Rayforce (Startling Odyssey, Star Breaker) but even those went pretty simplistic, obviously spending their budget on graphics, audio, theme songs, etc rather than beefing up the actual gameplay. The end result is that the RPGs that are the most fun to play on PC often end up being the ones with a smaller scope to begin with. The Y's series, for example.

The Arcade Card is disappointing, but hardly surprising. It cost half as much as an entire Super Famicom, for starters. And the point of the AC is to give you more memory...but everything you are going to fill that memory with costs money to make! If Star Breaker had cinemas with as high end as the opening of 3x3 Eyes the game would cost at least as much as a SFC RPG, and would it sell as many units? I don't see how it could.

Also, and this is not really related, if anything the ACD increased load times usually. Super CDs had virtually no load times (not by post PS1 standards anyway) since 256k of RAM just doesn't take very long to fill. Compare something like Advanced VG or Asuka 120% to Fatal Fury 2 or Art of Fighting.

[nectarsis]

GT5=$60,000,000!?!?!?

[shonenx]

Everyone here has made some really good points on both sides . Ultimately it sounds like we all really wish that the spirit of the system had continued on in its a truly capable NEC sucessor system.......( And not just successfully in Japan )

[NecroPhile]

To understand why the PCE doesn't have an FF-grade RPG...its all numbers, I'd imagine.

etc.

Agreed, especially when you consider that there was zero chance of bringing it to the US market (towards the end of the PCE's life, that is).

Also, and this is not really related, if anything the ACD increased load times usually. Super CDs had virtually no load times (not by post PS1 standards anyway) since 256k of RAM just doesn't take very long to fill. Compare something like Advanced VG or Asuka 120% to Fatal Fury 2 or Art of Fighting.

It increased the initial load time, but it could reduce the number of subsequent loads (i.e. - platformers could have one long level instead of two shorter levels, or RPGs wouldn't need to reload for battles or when entering different areas).

[CMcK]

I don't think it was just the PC Engine that died off too early but 2d gaming as a whole. Poor quality 3d was thrust onto the world with the 3DO, Saturn and PlayStation arguably before developers were ready for it.
We should have really had a generation of slick, well animated, high resolution and high colour 2d / 2.5d games before the Dreamcast appeared.

[exodus]

I'd buy your argument, if it weren't for the Super Famicom's seemingly contradictory library.  1995 was arguably the last year of real support for the PCE, as only 11 titles were released after that year (1.5% of its library); the SF saw 245* games released in that same time period (14.6% of its library).  The SF admittedly had a much larger library (more than double) and greater third party support, but given such a startlingly vast disparity, coupled with the fact that many of the latter SF titles were fantastically original and among the best of its library, it's impossible to believe that few cared about the 16-bitters after '95.

The point is games take a while to develop, and everyone knew the market was moving on. There were lots of games still in development for the SFC when the PS and Saturn were announced, but a lot of games that could jumped ship to the newer platforms. PCE being so old didn't have the marketshare to make putting games on it as viable as it was for the SFC, which was still the only modern Nintendo-backed system. The continued support from the parent company was critical, especially for Japanese companies. As Hudson and NEC had already unveiled their PC-FX, and it was clear that proper game makers weren't going to be able to do much with it, developers must certainly have seen that NEC was going for a different market, and that they should move on to other consoles that support their strengths. So from a third party company standpoint, it didn't make sense to support the PCE when the PC-FX was already out as a successor, and not a very friendly one at that. The SFC on the other hand still had 100% of Nintendo's support as a home console, so seems more like a winning horse. And then, as I mentioned, there are the 3D consoles coming out around the same time.

[esteban]

I suppose it was bound to happen, considering how "novel" the post-16-bit era promised to be...

That said...

The NES (Famicom) had a bunch of development late in its life, and many gems! NES and Famicom had such a huge user base, even a few years into the 16-bit era, that publishers were happy to make $$$.  If only the late-era PCE (transition to Saturn, PS1, etc.) was seen as a huge market "ripe for profit" akin to Nintendo's huge 8-bit market during transition to 16-bit.

Hmmmmmm, both the NES and PCE were uniquely successful during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, so I really shouldn't complain. We were lucky the PCE thrived as long as it did.

[NecroPhile]

The point is games take a while to develop, and everyone knew the market was moving on. There were lots of games still in development for the SFC when the PS and Saturn were announced, but a lot of games that could jumped ship to the newer platforms.

That's not much of a point, as you're just confirming that the PCE was abandoned long before the SFC.

PCE being so old didn't have the marketshare to make putting games on it as viable as it was for the SFC, which was still the only modern Nintendo-backed system. The continued support from the parent company was critical, especially for Japanese companies.  As Hudson and NEC had already unveiled their PC-FX, and it was clear that proper game makers weren't going to be able to do much with it, developers must certainly have seen that NEC was going for a different market, and that they should move on to other consoles that support their strengths. So from a third party company standpoint, it didn't make sense to support the PCE when the PC-FX was already out as a successor, and not a very friendly one at that. The SFC on the other hand still had 100% of Nintendo's support as a home console, so seems more like a winning horse. And then, as I mentioned, there are the 3D consoles coming out around the same time.

Let me get this straight: Hudson/NEC shouldn't have extended support for the PCE because Hudson/NEC had already stopped providing support.  Hard to argue with that logic. 

Third party support obviously disappears when a manufacturer halts support, yet the SF demonstrated that continued official support can lead to continued third party support, even after the release of the next-gen system (there were 82 SF releases after the release of the N64).  The SF's larger installed base isn't terribly important either; if it were, the third party developers would've abandoned the PCE soon after the SF took the lead in sales.

[awack]

As far as numbers go, i think Tengai Makyou sold about the same number of copies as chrono trigger, around 2 million. I don't know any sales figures for 1995, as far as the PCE is concerned.

Even though the PCE has an action RPG that equals anything on the SNES, its very true that it has no turn base RPG on the level of FF III or Chrono Trigger, i would throw in Lunar EB (SEGACD)...also missing is a platform shooter, side scroll brawler, and platformer(cute) with the production value of a Contra, Final Fight, Streets of Rage, DKC, or Yoshi island, but it did get the tops when it came shooters(WOT, Sapphire) action/hs(Rondo) dating sim(Tokimeki Memorial) and digital comic(Snatcher..along with the sega cd).

[exodus]

Let me get this straight: Hudson/NEC shouldn't have extended support for the PCE because Hudson/NEC had already stopped providing support.  Hard to argue with that logic. 

ah, I guess we're coming at this from different angles. I suppose it could be argued that had NEC supported the PCE a bit longer, it could have lasted a  bit longer - but it was pretty unlikely given how they wanted users to transition to the PC-FX. If they could have proved there was still a market for the games, I'm sure they could've squeezed out another year, but given the direction the company was trying to go, I think it's for the best it died when it did. My point about third parties was more say that extending past the point that NEC supported it was pretty unlikely. SFC is a different story, I think.

[BlackandBlue]

It didnt help that Nintendo use to have it's 3rd party developers by the balls, like Walmart does manufacturers.

[SignOfZeta]

It didnt help that Nintendo use to have it's 3rd party developers by the balls, like Walmart does manufacturers.

That's a ridiculous comparison. Nintendo's fees are high, but successful SFC publishers were totally rolling in it. Koei, Capcom, Square, etc were not working in sweat shops knee deep in toxic waste.

[BlackandBlue]

That's a ridiculous comparison.

Sorry, couldn't think of anything else at the time.

[TurboXray]

The Arcade Card is disappointing, but hardly surprising. It cost half as much as an entire Super Famicom, for starters. And the point of the AC is to give you more memory...but everything you are going to fill that memory with costs money to make! If Star Breaker had cinemas with as high end as the opening of 3x3 Eyes the game would cost at least as much as a SFC RPG, and would it sell as many units? I don't see how it could.

I'm sorry that you were poor or such. When the AC came out, I had a job and could easily afford it. The japanese also happened to be in healthy middle class driven economy. The Duo originally retailing for over $500USD over there and something like $100 for a AC Duo was some sort of factor? They already had a user base. And it's not like the card price couldn't have come down if software sales to drive the card went up and other factors (Like NEC having their *own* ram/rom fabrication plant, the ram isn't addressed like normal ram/rom - saving money right there - could be DRAM, could be serialized ram, whatever. It didn't have to be standard interface ram which makes it more expensive.) Also, why are you using Star Breaker as any sort of comparison regarding quality. That is a low production value, corner cutting, plain jane, game. And 3x3 eyes ACD support is an after thought. The load routines are extremely unoptimized (like they were assuming/built the game when the ACD was in prototype stages and access was slow). Which continues onto my next point...

Also, and this is not really related, if anything the ACD increased load times usually. Super CDs had virtually no load times (not by post PS1 standards anyway) since 256k of RAM just doesn't take very long to fill. Compare something like Advanced VG or Asuka 120% to Fatal Fury 2 or Art of Fighting.

I beg to differ. Many Super CD games handled loading in very poor fashion. Multiple calls and sector seeks for single level/environment conditions. There's no excuse for that. The CD data tracks can and do accompany redundant data out the ass. Dracula X does something like 8-9 CD load requests for a single level. That's ridiculous and it really slows down loading time. The only SCD game that I know of that does proper loading of that does proper loading is Gate of Thunder. It reads in 192k in one single linear read per level. And you can tell, there's almost no loading  in between stages. 3x3 eyes, IIRC, reads in 8k at at time - then copies that 8k to an ACD port, then rinse/repeat. That's extremely slow and *really* no need for it. Even later games used there own CD read routines to get faster access (imagine ~35% speed increase for linear read ins). Gulliverboy gets it right (custom CD read routine and writes directly to the AC ports), too bad it only uses the AC memory as a buffer for cinemas so it doesn't have to reload the game data back in when the cinema finishes. But there's nothing to say other AC games could or wouldn't have done this. And then there's the final aspect of an AC project. Built from the ground up, you don't treat it like a normal SCD but with more memory. You load in large constants of data in the very initial start of the game. So you only need small amount of variable data loads through out the game. And there's no rule saying you have to use large sections of memory all of the time. You could keep the dynamic allocation down to 512k most of the time and only use more in special case situations (since you have a lot of constants already loaded at the start of the SCD game state). And finally, to put things into perspective: Gulliver boy has no problem pulling 122k per second consistently for 5 minutes or more. And that's to keep things in sync, you can reach higher transfer speed up to 150k with custom routines (default system card bios calls don't/won't read in that fast). 3-4 seconds to load in 512k is pretty damn quick (not including any seek times if audio tracks need changing). That's well with in a fade out, and fade in transition of a normal cart game. So don't necessarily take you projections of 90% inefficient load times of SCDs and scale it against ACD additional memory. That's nonsense. Quite a few top titles for 95-96 uses fast custom CD read routines. There's nothing to say that wouldn't apply to top ACD games either.


 And a side note; 3x3 Eyes has some of the worst working logic for cinemas on the system... ever. It does in fact treat the game like SCD when in ACD. Load in a long series of graphic data (and with it's exceptionally slow loading routine at that), then display it. When it fact it should be streaming it. No HuVideo - but actually reading the data from the disc and applying the animation as necessary - more like Flash to give an example. Or more like Popful Mail on the SegaCD. You don't get constant high frame per second animation every second of the video. There are "rest" points where things can calm down or such, but don't appear to because you can still repeat old animation and/or slide layers around onscreen - do lip movement for talking, or pans across a view - whatever. And AC memory would be a *HUGE* help in this since you can buffer a LOT. 3x3 Eyes is a piss poor example of how to incorrectly work with the AC memory/environment.

 I used to think cliche terms like "lazy programmers" was thrown around way too much. But really, it's not. There are plenty designers and programmers that *will* takes the least amount of work/time/money approach to a project. This is called low production value. Good ideas/games on low-to-mid production value schedules. The more I look at games, trace code, look at tile/sprite usage, compression schemes used, the more I shake my head which is obviously corners being cut.

[shubibiman]

Tom, the more I discover how well you know the PCE, the more I wish you could make a game. Isq it on your agenda?

[esteban]

Tom, the more I discover how well you know the PCE, the more I wish you could make a game. Isq it on your agenda?

I just want Tom to continue sharing his insights with us

[daydream]
Also, I think he should string together a bunch of demos (as mini-games), maybe even be creative and find a way to tie everything together into a cohesive theme/story.
[/dream]

That would be neat.

[shonenx]

I think continued third party support is greatly incouraged by first party support. Yes ..BUT.....Look at the dreamcast, 3rd party support jus didnt quit i think its a matter of how moved people are by a system to keep building software for it . unfortunately people didnt want to build that bridge between 2d and 3d by making superb 2d full motion anime games on the NEC hardware. #d was new and uncharted and every one wanted to get there first and companies that dont have stable game hisstory or a steady series cant afford to be behind the big push they all wanna break 3d sucess ground first .

[SignOfZeta]

I'm sorry that you were poor or such.

Since I wasn't even living in Japan in the early 90s I don't see how poor I may or may not have been has anything to do with this. I spent a fuckload of money on games back then, a lot more than I do now, and most of it was spent...on SFC and SCD games, actually. That and the arcade. I mean, I played almost every AC game (had a Die Hard near me) but Mad Stalker and the SNK ports just didn't do it for me so I passed until ACs were really cheap. Now that I have almost every AC game I can honestly say I made the right choice. From what I can tell, the people in Japan did pretty much the same thing. Even if you are hella rich you can still see that it costs $120 more to play Fatal Fury 2 on the PC Engine than it does to play it on the SFC...and if you want a superior version of an SNK game, and you don't mind the huge load times, there was also the Neo CD, released about the same time.

The Duo originally retailing for over $500USD over there and something like $100 for a AC Duo was some sort of factor? They already had a user base.

Yeah, they had a user base. An ever shrinking one. Every time a new fancy thingambob came out for PC Engine the user base was fragmented. This is why you can still buy unopened copies of Fatal Fury 2 by the case (literally) on eBay 16 years after its release. Not even mentioning the early PCE gamers who ditched NEC/Hudson before without ever buying a CD system, if %80 of all Duo owners bought an Arcade Card (highly unrealistic), and %80 of those people all bought AC games (also, unrealistic) you still wouldn't have enough sales to generate SFC quantities of revenue.

Also, why are you using Star Breaker as any sort of comparison regarding quality. That is a low production value, corner cutting, plain jane, game.

Compared to what? I quite like it. I was using it as an example because it is very FF/DQ-like, although lower budget.

And 3x3 eyes ACD support is an after thought. The load routines are extremely unoptimized (like they were assuming/built the game when the ACD was in prototype stages and access was slow). Which continues onto my next point...

And I used 3x3 Eyes as an example because it has, by far, the fanciest cinema in the PCE library. If Star Breaker was as fancy as 3x3 Eyes then...well, that would be pretty cool! But, it would have put Rayforce right the fuck out of business (sooner) because it never would have made its money back. It would have cost more money to make, and fewer people would have bought it. This is why they made it a Super CD. This is why everyone made Super CDs. The was almost no possibility of full-on AC games making their money back. This was my point all along.

The failure of the Arcade Card was not a technical one, it was a social/economic one. Ya dig?

I beg to differ. Many Super CD games handled loading in very poor fashion....etc etc etc...

OK, all that technical shit aside...you beg to differ with what? The cold hard fact is that AC games take longer to load. I don't know this because I'm a programmer, I know this simply because I have played the friggn games. Seriously, load of Art of Fighting right now and watch it load the first fight. Have you ever seen a SCD game that takes even half this long to load? I sure as hell haven't. I'm sure there are all sorts of reasons for this, but it doesn't change the fact that, all things being equal (so, same amount of programing skill/effort) it takes longer for the PCE's single speed drive to fill the AC's huge bucket that it takes to fill the Super System's thimble. There are some AC games with good load times, Battlefield '94 for example, but I've seen nothing in this game that couldn't have been done as a straight CDROM2. The flashy ones, IIRC, all have shitty load times. This is why I said that the AC increases load times. It could in theory reduce them, obviously, but in reality AC games take, on average, WAY longer to load than SCD games. Compare the loads in Sapphire to the loads in Got. Fatal Fury Special to Flash Hiders. You can beg to differ all you like, but AC games take longer to load and I suspect it is for the same reason that a book with more worlds in it takes longer to read. Everything about FF Special on PCE is absolutely first rate. It kicks the shit out of the crappy Takara ports of SNK games. If it could load all that much quicker it seems like it would since Hudson really put some effort into this sucker.

And a side note; 3x3 Eyes has some of the worst working logic for cinemas on the system... ever. It does in fact treat the game like SCD when in ACD. Load in a long series of graphic data (and with it's exceptionally slow loading routine at that), then display it. When it fact it should be streaming it. No HuVideo - but actually reading the data from the disc and applying the animation as necessary - more like Flash to give an example. Or more like Popful Mail on the SegaCD. You don't get constant high frame per second animation every second of the video. There are "rest" points where things can calm down or such, but don't appear to because you can still repeat old animation and/or slide layers around onscreen - do lip movement for talking, or pans across a view - whatever. And AC memory would be a *HUGE* help in this since you can buffer a LOT. 3x3 Eyes is a piss poor example of how to incorrectly work with the AC memory/environment.

Its like this:

For years PCE developers and players had to have their cinemas one of two ways. You could have streaming portions with more animation that left you with scratchy as hell audio samples mixed in with chip tunes, or you could load it all at once and have CDDA sound, but with less animation because the CD can't stop playing the audio in order to load data.

With the Arcade Card that compromise didn't have to be made. At last they could load a fuck ton of cinema into memory and also play CDDA through the entire thing. The makers of 3x3 Eyes saw this possibility and actually acted on it. The SCD version of the opening has the crappy audio ala Aim for the Top!.

You solution makes sense, but it assumes nobody cares about clean audio...and a lot of people do.

I used to think cliche terms like "lazy programmers" was thrown around way too much. But really, it's not. There are plenty designers and programmers that *will* takes the least amount of work/time/money approach to a project. This is called low production value. Good ideas/games on low-to-mid production value schedules. The more I look at games, trace code, look at tile/sprite usage, compression schemes used, the more I shake my head which is obviously corners being cut.

This is because games are made on a budget. If they avoid the budget, it will be the last game they make. The next time your boss tells you to cut corners with some code, tell him to piss off. Tell him that you are going to do it the right way. He may let you work an extra 8 hours every day for free to pull it off, but I'll bet you'll get sick of that.

BTW, that "sorry you're poor" comment is total asshole. What is this, a Ferrari forum? You sound like the bad guy from an unproduced script of Caddyshack 3.

[TurboXray]

I spent a fuckload of money on games back then, a lot more than I do now, and most of it was spent...on SFC and SCD games, actually. That and the arcade. I mean, I played almost every AC game (had a Die Hard near me) but Mad Stalker and the SNK ports just didn't do it for me so I passed until ACs were really cheap. Now that I have almost every AC game I can honestly say I made the right choice. From what I can tell, the people in Japan did pretty much the same thing.

 Wow. Thank you for proving original my point. Software sales drive hardware sales. See my later part of this thread as to why the AC failed.

Even if you are hella rich you can still see that it costs $120 more to play Fatal Fury 2 on the PC Engine than it does to play it on the SFC...and if you want a superior version of an SNK game, and you don't mind the huge load times, there was also the Neo CD, released about the same time.

One, your logic fails in that you assume FF2 only and the AC. Who the hell is going to one addon card to play 1 game (a port at that)? Your point is invalid. Just because you didn't care for the other ACD games, doesn't mean others don't. Let's take a few games; Mad Stalker, FF2, AoF, Sapphire. Four games off the top of my head. You divide the one time cost of the card, across the titles you bought. The more AC titles released (and those would include ACD/SCD bi-compatible games with significant additional context for ACD users), the more the original cost of the card becomes irrelevant. It's no different than when you buy a game system, or a DVD player, or whatever. All you're doing is bitching about the end result, and not the source of the problem (which you seem to have trouble formulating). The four repeated points you keep mentioning; price of the card, available titles, additional load times, and the lack of any audience left to buy it - as being the reason why it wasn't successful. The price is a non issue - about the cost of a game and a half or less. The lack of an audience to buy it - bullshit. While the card might have come out later (feb-ish '94), I'll give you that, PCE consumers/softs sales were still strong. And enough to warrant of bringing out the card to begin with. Additional load times - I've already discussed the technical fuckups of most ACD games (two of them) and how they would have improved, but general logic still holds - if gameplay periods between loading are longer and/or the visual/animation/gameplay/whatever experience is dramatically increased, the additional length in load times are relatively tolerable (I'm not talking about the extreme load time cases like in some ACD games). Also, see might point in how load times could/would be decreased in the following two years.

 And lastly, the available titles. This is the failure of the AC. The difference isn't as great as between hucards to SCD, than it is from SCD to ACD. Not just that, but CD to SCD was not only needed because of how crippling the 64k of ram the original CD system had, but that the upgrade was solidified in being included in the new main system - the Duo. Even if they had come out with a new Duo model with AC built in, the conditions weren't the same as when the original Duo came out.

 So this addon required a completely different approach to entice existing Duo/PCE consumer base (I highly doubt NEC was expecting to gain any new consumers to its base with AC). Companies were reluctant to develop ACD only games for such a small audience when the SCD audience was HUGE in comparison. Therefore it relied on bi-compatible softs to get hardware sales moving. Bi-compatible softs that atleast gave a taste of what a true ACD game meant (which didn't happen, obviously). That and there weren't enough "show boat" ACD only titles out either. A Far East of Eden only ACD game released in mid '94 would have been a much bigger pusher of hardware sales than any of the fighting games/ports combined. Matter of fact, bi-compatible ACD/SCD softs would have been the biggest factor in selling these addon cards, more so than ACD only titles. You've said yourself, ACD only market is much smaller than SCD market and given the time left on the console even if you assume great sales numbers of the arcade card, it still wouldn't have matched it or exceeded it. I'm not trying to say it would have. I'm saying ACD offered two advantages; bi-compatible games would have upgraded content, and ACD only games (as little number as they still would be) would offer something that SCD games couldn't do - if a company wanted to take that route. It's a win/win situation that didn't play out... for the very fact that the existing so called bi-compatible ACD/SCD games that did come out (and there are quite a few of them) was a complete let down on the ACD side/content of the game. It was laughable. Leaving only ACD only games to show any real improvement/difference between SCD/ACD and the only incentive to purchase the card. Thus, failure. I think it's a perfectly safe logical assumption too, that if the ACD sales were much greater and that those users left near the very end of the consoles life - would more than likely be PCECD consumers with that card. The hardcore/loyal fans are usually the last to go. And the possibility of more ACD only titles that what was put, would have been a reality.

Yeah, they had a user base. An ever shrinking one. Every time a new fancy thingambob came out for PC Engine the user base was fragmented. This is why you can still buy unopened copies of Fatal Fury 2 by the case (literally) on eBay 16 years after its release. Not even mentioning the early PCE gamers who ditched NEC/Hudson before without ever buying a CD system, if %80 of all Duo owners bought an Arcade Card (highly unrealistic), and %80 of those people all bought AC games (also, unrealistic) you still wouldn't have enough sales to generate SFC quantities of revenue.

Who's the hell is making the point that NEC was gonna be level competitive to the SFC at that point? That's just stupid. You need to keep your thoughts/focus in context. Nobody that I can see, is saying how the ACD would generate sales figures anywhere near SFC at that time. Yeah, the PCE softs might have out sold the SFC softs for a short while - but that's only because of the popularity of the PCE at the time and the limited number of SFC titles at the time of the SFC's release. And fragmented the user base? Are you retarded? They combined the CD unit into the Duo as a single machine for the sake of focus. CD format was now the new machine starting 1991, hucards were the old machine and nothing but a legacy format. Fragmented what? If you're looking at it in the perspective of pce+cd addon+scd, then you're a fool. The so called "addons" were meant to keep existing customers giving them the option of upgrading without having to buy a whole new system. Be it owners there never have a CD unit (the Super CDROM2 was their option because it included the new SCD 3.0 card in it) or the SCD 3.0 upgrade card for those users that already had purchased the original CD unit. But I'm sure you'll probably come up with some asinine response pointing out all the devices NEC ever came out with and some how try to make it all logically (and I use that word loosely) fit into your point - and how the AC is related/fits in.

[TurboXray]

Also, why are you using Star Breaker as any sort of comparison regarding quality. That is a low production value, corner cutting, plain jane, game.

Compared to what? I quite like it. I was using it as an example because it is very FF/DQ-like, although lower budget.

Really? Compared to what? I take it you haven't play many SCD RPGs then? Star Breaker, with its weak graphics, low colors, poor palette choices, low animation, below average cinema graphics/quality. You mention Star Breaker as if it were something special, it's not. The game might be fun, whatever, but that doesn't detract about the other factors of the game. SO and SO2 are just like Star Breaker (and by the same company). Low production value games (be it fun or not). I don't see how you can make the comparison between those low production value games and top tire titles like FF and DQ on the SFC, as if they're on the same level. Seriously, ACD bi-compatible upgrades to games like I dunno.. Xanadu, Xanadu 2, Ys IV, Emerald Dragon, A Near Earth Story, Monster Maker, just to name a few? And you mention Star Breaker...

And 3x3 eyes ACD support is an after thought. The load routines are extremely unoptimized (like they were assuming/built the game when the ACD was in prototype stages and access was slow). Which continues onto my next point...

And I used 3x3 Eyes as an example because it has, by far, the fanciest cinema in the PCE library. If Star Breaker was as fancy as 3x3 Eyes then...well, that would be pretty cool! But, it would have put Rayforce right the fuck out of business (sooner) because it never would have made its money back. It would have cost more money to make, and fewer people would have bought it. This is why they made it a Super CD. This is why everyone made Super CDs. The was almost no possibility of full-on AC games making their money back. This was my point all along.

Actually, Gulliver easily beats out 3x3 Eyes for cinemas. But regardless, just because 3x3 Eyes cinemas are the most impressive to you - doesn't mean that's the best the system could do. They took a rather generic approach technically (which I've already given technical reasons why there are superior options). But more importantly, you think some better cinemas would have put Rayforce out of business? Hahahaha. That's asinine. Yes, if a company is going to do a full ACD only title, it better be something that clearly can't be done in a ACD/SCD bi-compatible setup. But I fail to see how Rayforce making a bi-compatible ACD/SCD and only using it for cinemas would put them out of business. Rayforce being a low production company though, I don't see the likelihood that they ever even looked at ACD only projects. Hudson/Falcom or some other bigger companies would be more likely.

I used to think cliche terms like "lazy programmers" was thrown around way too much. But really, it's not. There are plenty designers and programmers that *will* takes the least amount of work/time/money approach to a project. This is called low production value. Good ideas/games on low-to-mid production value schedules. The more I look at games, trace code, look at tile/sprite usage, compression schemes used, the more I shake my head which is obviously corners being cut.

This is because games are made on a budget. If they avoid the budget, it will be the last game they make. The next time your boss tells you to cut corners with some code, tell him to piss off. Tell him that you are going to do it the right way. He may let you work an extra 8 hours every day to pull it off, but I'll bet you'll get sick of that.

You make this exaggerated statement/analogy, yet you haven't a clue how much "relative" time was saved but cutting corners. And you have no idea if unoptimized method actually saved anytime at all. There are plenty of examples on the PCE, where sprites could be compiled and yet they didn't, leading to over occurrence of flicker. And more times than not, it saves time and space. Sprites are just one example. You think it would have taken the programmer responsible for the cinemas in 3x3 Eyes, that much more time to do a proper ACD load route? I took me less than a day to figure the ACD regs out and write my own, faster, load routine. It wasn't voodoo code or magic, it was common sense. Yes, adding additional script control, events, more dialog, etc ala FF2/3 US or ChronoTrigger is more production time than a simple RPG. Or perfecting gameplay mechanics for action/shooter style genres. That part of production value is higher level design. But I'm talking about stuff that doesn't take a lot of time. I'm was talking about lower level design in that part. These programmers worked at there jobs for I assume at least 9-10 hours a day (being Japan, but even in the US programmers tend to work long hours). If I was coding 10hours a day and 5 days a week, I could sure as hell get a *lot* done on a PCE project - I tell you that. I mean, do you think it took that Red Company programmer sooo much extra time to organize level data into linear sector loads in GOT? But yet Konami goes out of their way with more effort to write a slower CD read setup for level loading in Rondo. Konami had great high level production value, but consistently had mediocre low level production design (Parodius on the PCE is a good example of this too). Rondo's method more work even, since you have multiple sectors now that you have to read in vs GOT single sector location per level (also one sector location read for the cinema and one for the ending credits). EU games in general (not on the PCE of course :/ ) of that era are probably the best example of exceptional low level design, but poor high level design.

[esteban]

I wish folks here weren't so lifeless and sterile. If only there was more passion and fire in our discussions.

[SignOfZeta]

Also, why are you using Star Breaker as any sort of comparison regarding quality. That is a low production value, corner cutting, plain jane, game.

Compared to what? I quite like it. I was using it as an example because it is very FF/DQ-like, although lower budget.

Really? Compared to what? I take it you haven't play many SCD RPGs then? Star Breaker, with its weak graphics, low colors, poor palette choices, low animation, below average cinema graphics/quality. You mention Star Breaker as if it were something special, it's not. The game might be fun, whatever, but that doesn't detract about the other factors of the game. SO and SO2 are just like Star Breaker (and by the same company). Low production value games (be it fun or not). I don't see how you can make the comparison between those low production value games and top tire titles like FF and DQ on the SFC, as if they're on the same level. Seriously, ACD bi-compatible upgrades to games like I dunno.. Xanadu, Xanadu 2, Ys IV, Emerald Dragon, A Near Earth Story, Monster Maker, just to name a few? And you mention Star Breaker...

The reason why I mentioned Star Breaker isn't because I think its the greatest thing ever, its because we were talking about FF style games and why the PCE doesn't have an FF/Chrono Trigger level of RPG. They don't have one because the money isn't there. Therefore, its obvious that I don't think that SB is FF/CT level, but the exact opposite. Its a game that is similar in style and game play to popular SFC RPGs, but just nowhere near as flashy. You are pointing out something that I not only already understand, but already used as a example of something.

Seriously, ACD bi-compatible upgrades to games like I dunno.. Xanadu, Xanadu 2, Ys IV, Emerald Dragon, A Near Earth Story, Monster Maker, just to name a few? And you mention Star Breaker...

How many of these games actually play like FF /DQ? I've never played A Near Earth Story, but I own all the other ones you mentioned (in addition to me not being poor, I also have a good collection of SCD RPGs) and they aren't FF-esque at all, except for maybe Monster Maker (which I haven't yet had time to play despite owning it for several years now).

Yes, SB is low rent, but having played it from beginning to end I can honestly say that its easily one of the best games of its kind on PCE (that is, a traditional mid-90s RPG). Xanadu is basically Zelda II. Its extremely impressive from a technical perspective (probably even more so that people like you, who actually understand/give a shit about whether the "sprites were compiled" or whatever) like most games from Falcom but it makes JJ and Jeff look like Super Mario Galaxy by comparion. Also, it is, frankly, extremely frustrating at times. There is more to a good RPG than a bunch of technical stuff nobody fucking understands.

FYI, I'm a great fan of the simplicity of Falcom games and consider any Y's game with an actual sword button to be useless. I only mention Xanadu's simplicity because it clearly isn't FF/DQ-like.

I'm not going to bother addressing the rest of your points because...I guess I'm just not as hard core dork as I used to be. You won our nerd jousting match not because you lifted me from my saddle in a mighty blow of Howard Pyle-eque lancery, but because nodded off and fell off my horse. Congrats, you won the thread!

[shubibiman]

The reason why we can still find tons of FF2s? Just because every one knew at the time that Fatal Fury Special was to be released. That's why we don't see that many NIB Art Of Fighting copies or other ACD games. And I guess that there were as many Art Of Fighting copies as FF2s as both games were released almost at the same time (03/12/94 and 26/03/94).

[Vecanti]

I wish folks here weren't so lifeless and sterile. If only there was more passion and fire in our discussions.

Throw some oil on the fire....

The PCE died?  It's stronger than ever.  Once the SuperGrafx catches on we will see whole bunch of new games!!  ;-)

Seriously, the PCE is not dead!  Well, mine isn't.